Clinton Kills Controversial Quayle Panel : Government: Gore says abolishing Council on Competitiveness closes ‘back door’ used by special interests to skirt law. New Cabinet is sworn in.

President Clinton on Friday abolished the controversial Council on Competitiveness, which had been chaired by former Vice President Dan Quayle, and watched as his Cabinet--with the glaring exception of an attorney general--was sworn into office.

While the council had no statutory authority over regulatory policy, the George Bush Administration used it as an informal arbiter of regulations. Often that meant it served as a means for businesses to appeal and kill regulations, even after they had been developed and approved by official agencies and Cabinet departments.

Quayle had defended the council as a means to protect the economy from overzealous regulators. But environmentalists and other activists long complained that it actually was designed to circumvent the government’s regulatory process and was watering down a wide array of rules on the environment, worker safety and health.

Vice President Al Gore, the Administration’s point man on the environment, said Friday that the abolition of the council was designed to send a “clear message to the special interests who used (the council) as a back door to avoid the law. That back door is now closed.”

Gore told reporters that the bulk of regulations will now be reviewed by the office of information and regulatory affairs in the Office of Management and Budget. A new regulatory appeals process will be developed, he said.

In a respite from the controversy surrounding the withdrawal of Zoe Baird’s nomination as attorney general, Clinton stood by as Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist swore in 16 senior Administration officials, including 13 Cabinet officers.

The President opened his first Cabinet meeting with a prayer and seemed eager to regain momentum in the wake of the brief, but intense, Baird controversy.

“Today I am proud to present to you and to the American people a Cabinet of talented, diverse and seasoned leaders,” Clinton said on his second full day in the White House.

Clinton told Cabinet members that “we have an enormous reservoir of goodwill out in the country and a fair amount of elbow room to face the issues that are before us.’

He also scheduled a Camp David retreat next weekend--Super Bowl weekend--for his Cabinet and senior White House staff. The purpose of the retreat, he said, was to talk about the new Administration’s priorities and to make certain Cabinet members can work together, one Administration source said.

Clinton’s communications director, George Stephanopoulos, also said the President scheduled a meeting for Monday with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to discuss the volatile issue of gays in the military.

Defense Secretary Les Aspin and Secretary of State Warren Christopher took the oath of office Friday along with the rest of the Cabinet, but actually had already been sworn in during private ceremonies on Wednesday.

Also taking their oaths in the East Room were Bruce Babbitt, secretary of the Interior; Lloyd Bentsen, secretary of the Treasury; Ronald H. Brown, secretary of commerce; Jesse Brown, secretary of veterans affairs; Henry G. Cisneros, secretary of housing and urban development; Mike Espy, secretary of agriculture; Hazel O’Leary, secretary of energy; Federico Pena, secretary of transportation; Robert B. Reich, secretary of labor; Richard W. Riley, secretary of education; and Donna Shalala, secretary of health and human services.

Also taking the oath were three officials who are not formally part of the Cabinet but have Cabinet-level status: Leon E. Panetta as director of the Office of Management and Budget, U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor and Carol Browner as director of the Environmental Protection Agency.